The legal precedents established at both the state and federal levels with require Florida to re-write it's election code completely before attempting another election or face massive litigation in the future. Prior to the election Florida law allowed for an automatic machine recount, and then another roughly 3 days for manual recounts if appropriate. Following that there was a period for election contests, but manual recounts were only allowed if you could show fraud or machine malfunction. After the election the time for protests was extended by an unclear amount at the expense of reducing the time for contests. Furthermore the bar was significantly lowered, and fraud or malfunction no longer need to be proved; now a mere allegation that another recount could possibly affect the outcome is sufficient, which should mean dramatically more litigation in this area in the future unless a new election code is adopted.
At the federal level, equal protection will probably no longer allow states to use optical scanners in some counties and punch cards in another, as you point out. States will have to adopt and use uniform counting techniques and polling methods all across the state. This is probably a good thing, by the way. On the other hand, like the changes at the state level, this ruling invites a dramatically higher level of litigation in the future, and is thus not a good thing.
There is little doubt that there was an equal protection problem. Eight justices agreed to that (all but Ginsburg). The only real questions were whether they were significant enough that the USSC should have gotten involved. I agree with Stevens that it was not that serious. On the other hand, I also see some poetic justice in the fact that by prolonging the protest phase Gore may have hurt his chances in the contest phase. We will never know if the result would have been different if his legal strategy had been different, though.
Carl |
